If you thought you were going to be guy to finally make your Star Wars fan-fic dreams a sort of reality, tough luck, Hoss. Turns out Disney had a guy on it before they even said they were making another Star Wars (probably a wise strategy).

Insiders confirm that Arndt has written a 40- to 50-page treatment for the film and is likely to be at least one of the writers when the Disney/Lucasfilm project begins shooting in 2014.
Sources also tell Vulture that the studio’s brass want to bring back the three central characters of the original Star Wars: a much older Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo.
Arndt’s 40-something page treatment will soon be crossing the desks of top directors, including Brad Bird, Steven Spielberg (the former producing partner of Lucasfilm co-chair Kathleen Kennedy), and J.J. Abrams.

Spielberg has already said he won’t direct, so don’t expect to witness the galactic rebellion through the innocent eyes of a gentle Tauntaun. And in case anyone’s asking (and apparently they are), Tarantino is also out.

Since winning the Oscar for Little MissSunshine, Arndt has lectured extensively on the art of storytelling at numerous writers’ retreats, like the Hawaii Writers Conference in Maui and the Austin Film Festival, always featuring a lengthy and detailed explanation of why the originalStar Wars’ ending is so creatively satisfying.

At these talks, Arndt always tells attendees that Star Wars’ enduring appeal has to do with resolving its protagonists goals’ nearly simultaneously, at the climax of the movie. In the comments section of a discussion about a Star Wars talk Arndt gave at the Austin Film Festival in 2010, one attendee of the seminar notes, “Arndt stated that if a writer could resolve the story’s arcs (internal, external, philosophical) immediately after the Moment of Despair at the climax, he or she would deliver the Insanely Great Ending and put the audience in a euphoric state. The faster it could happen, the better. By [Arndt’s] reckoning, George Lucas hit those three marks at the climax of Star Wars within a space of 22 seconds.”

Yikes. I know that’s a second-hand account, but that was very Robert McKee. It always scares me when people try to fit qualitative emotional states into labeled boxes like an autistic kid trying to grasp emotions. It reminds me of Mystery from The Pick-Up Artist, who would describe getting to second base something like… “Well look, if she’s been giving you IOIs all night and you’re DHV success number is over 65, it’s time to kino-escalate.” Always odd when people turn life into instructions for building a desk from IKEA. But hey, the guy wrote Toy Story 3, which was unarguably amazing, so whatever works. You can drink your own piss from pickle jars labeled “story arc ,” “redemption,” and “catharsis” for all I care. Hell, I’m gonna go do that right now, just because.

Arndt is writing big budget flicks for Disney, damn right it’s going to be based on formula. As much as I wish filmmakers would take chances with the Hero’s Journey, had Lucas spent any time studying the formula he apparently stumbled onto by accident with A New Hope, the prequels would’ve been so much better. Also that whole paragraph of jargon is exactly what it’s like to sit through screenwriting lectures. I wish the lecturer would just stand up and say, “Look, don’t give any of these hacks a penny, watch a couple movies to pick up the structure and then ask yourself, “what connections do I have to get this read? If the answer is none, go back to engineering school.”

Banthapug reminds me of a business idea I’ve been working on for quite some time now: bulldog modification. We’ll install cloven hooves, lion’s manes, ram’s horns, plate armor, or any number of other enhancements, you name it, for a reasonable price.

I was just thinking of The Pick-Up Artist today for some stupid reason that no one gives a shit for now. Yelling out ‘Matadorrrrrr’ at some asshole trying to chat up a lady out of his league makes no one laugh anymore. Sad.